China General Nuclear Power Corporation (CGN) began full-scale construction of its first Hualong One nuclear power unit with a cooling tower on November 18, as the first concrete was poured for the reactor building of the Zhaoyuan Nuclear Power Plant Unit 1 in East China's Shandong Province.
Located in Zhangxing Town of Zhaoyuan, Yantai, the nuclear plant is CGN’s tenth nuclear power base nationwide. Upon completion of all six Hualong One nuclear power units, the plant is expected to generate 50 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity annually, meeting the energy demand of approximately 5 million people. It will reduce standard coal consumption by about 15.27 million tons and cut carbon dioxide emissions by 46.2 million tons annually—equivalent to planting more than 110,000 hectares of forest.
As a key initiative in Shandong’s energy development strategy, the project will foster a nuclear–wind–solar–storage clean energy cluster, contributing to the province’s green, low-carbon transition and high-quality growth.
The project’s most distinctive feature is its 203-meter natural draft cooling tower with a spray area of 16,800 square meters. “This is the first time secondary-circuit cooling technology has been applied to a Hualong One unit,” a project representative said.
The tower shifts the conventional island cooling source from the ocean to the atmosphere, using an atmospheric heat-sink effect to carry away residual heat from the thermal cycle, while seawater serves only as a supplementary source. The design enables water to be reused, significantly reduces pumping height and energy consumption, and minimizes drift.
Additionally, the project is also the first Hualong One unit equipped with a nuclear-grade mechanical draft cooling tower, whose large on-site water tank can sustain reactor cooling for at least 30 days without replenishment. Together, the natural and mechanical cooling systems form an integrated secondary-circuit cooling solution, establishing a comprehensive cooling-source protection system for both the conventional and nuclear islands.
(Executive editor: Yuan Ting)
